[Farmall] Walk About

Bob Currie tracturs at att.net
Sun Jul 8 09:38:07 PDT 2007


I'm a little slow with the followup to Karls message last month, but yup, it was time for another THT around the country. Some of you have met Sarah the Wonder Dog on previous trips, and she was with me on this one too. We took off from here in northern California on June 9th and spent three weeks hauling the RV around 12 different states. First was a stop at Karl's place in Southern CA for an update tour of Olmsteads acres, and to pick up an O-12 fuel tank for Dwayne Hansford in Indiana. Karl has more equipment that ends with 12 or 14, than anybody I know,,unless maybe James Gall in KS. We also had time to sit by their new  pond and listen to the bull Frogs, while talking tractors and other worldly things. From there I zipped over to Las Vegas (didn't stop) and up through Utah to catch I-70 eastbound. Beautiful country across eastern Utah, Colorado, up the grade and through the Eisenhour tunnel, over to Denver, and down into the flat lands of eastern CO and western KS. I stayed on I-70 until I got through Kansas, Missouri, Illinois and over to Indianapolis, IN then swung south about 45 miles for the 16th annual Johnson County Antique Machinery Assn show,,featuring IH equipment. Spent 3 days there with some great Indiana IH folks enjoying that show and watching something new for me,,tractor pulling with modified Garden Tractors..They pull a regular size sled with highly modified Garden tractors.I found those people in Indiana are very serious about their Tractor Pullin'. I also talked with Harry Lee, and saw many of his various Farmalls including that, 19,000 lb,  dual Farmall 400 diesel, with all wheel drive, and operated with 2 hand clutches, one for each tractor. I think it's called a Garrett. On to do some tourist stuff and visit "The Brickyard" in Indianapolis, and on up to Auburn, IN for the WWII museum at Kruse's place, and the extremely nice Auburn, Cord, Duesenberg museum. There is also a brokerage house for Corvettee lovers if you like that kind of thing. I'd say about 80 - 100 of them on display,,all for sale.  Then a little further north east to the 63rd annual National Threshers Assoc Reunion there in Wauseon, OH at the county fair grounds. Unbelieveable! Out here in my neighborhood we don't have any steam engines but there were plenty of them at this show. They were featuring Port Huron Steamers and this years feature tractor was IH, and Mike Androvich was in charge of that portion of the display. It would have been another 8 hours travel to get over to Bloomsburg for the RPRU, and travel butt was setting in pretty good so I decided to hang out in N/W Ohio this time. Gave me a great chance to spend 4 days hanging around with 40+ steam engines, some enormous gas tractors like the 30-60 Aultman Taylor, and Wendell Kelch was there with his 30-60 Titan, and the 30-60 friction drive Mogul. Now THAT is an impressive tractor..Since I favor the older, unstyled machinery, it was a hugh treat for me to be up close to some of the Androvich brothers stuff, like an 8-16 Mogul, some International 8-16 chain drives, Farmall Regular wide front, W-30 California Orchard (hey........how'd that get there?) couple of 10-20 Titans, an International 15-30 chain drive, and a beautiful restored Fairway 12 belonging to Paul Ganzel. A lot of these tractors you and I have seen in magazines over the past couple years, so it was big time, for a small time guy like me to see these machines up close and talk with the owners. I left Saturday at noon and just missed seeing the Swissconsin boys, Smudlach and Fayguy who slipped in on there way back from the RPRU. On the journey home I took U.S. 20 and headed across northern IN, northern IL, and crossed the Mississippi River at Dubuque IA and then over to Dyersville, Iowa. I was on an errand for a club friend to try and locate some die cast ERTL products..Struck out on that, but I did find the farm where they filmed "The Field of Dreams" movie in 1988 with Kevin Kostner. Looks the same as the day they did the movie. Open to the public, no fee, and the owners of the farm keep everything in excellent shape for those of us who wanted to visit. From there I headed S/W and grabbed U.S. 30 so I could stop in Jefferson, IA and see Nick Foster. He has a great collection of early stuff, plus 3 steamers, plus The the largest tractor of it's kind. "Big Bud", plus his latest project, a rare Rumley Gas Pull tractor sitting there in numerous pieces.  Nick had some 8-16 parts that I agreed to haul for a guy back out this way. So early the next morning we parted company, I headed south, caught good ol' I-80 and spent the next few days getting back to the hills of northern CA. Certainly a lot of fun, Sarah and I saw some great farmin' country with beautiful corn growing almost everywhere we went there in the mid west. Must be that Ethanol thing.  We averaged 12 MPG hauling that bigol RV with the Duramax, and with diesel averaging $2.90 a gallon it was the most costly part of the trip. I'm now properly inspired to drag my F-12 Waukesha out of the tractor shed and get it down to the shop where it can get some deserved attention. It would be good to hear it run again. Then theres that F-14 wide front I should probably start on, and the W-12 won't fire, probably from sitting too much. And oh yea,,I wanted to get the magneto repaired on the Regular..bobcurrie 



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